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Cameron rails at schools for failing poor pupils

David Cameron says the government faces a 'monumental task' in education (Julien Warnand)

DAVID CAMERON has attacked school standards and said the low number of students from the poorest households who win places at Cambridge and Oxford universities is a “national scandal”.

At the National Conservative Convention in London, the prime minister railed at the maths skills of British 15-year-olds, who he said are two academic years behind their counterparts in China.

“We’re outperformed in reading by Estonia, in science by Liechtenstein,” he said. He blamed a “deeply corrosive” ideology that has been allowed to take root, which holds that “schools shouldn’t compete with each other” and “competitive sports are a bad thing”.

Addressing party members attending the convention, Cameron said the government faced a “monumental task” in education.

“In our state schools, one in five pupils receive free school meals but in our top universities — Oxford and Cambridge — less than 1% of students, less than one in 100, come from this group.